Testing Week

Dear Parents,

Happy Easter! I hope you all had a restful, joyful holiday with your families.

Thank you to all of you who came out for our MOD Pizza fundraiser on Thursday. I came at 6:45pm, and I saw many Trivium East families. As always, we appreciate your loyal support of our school.

Today (Monday, March 28) re-enrollment packets are due. Please be sure to get those packets in so that your child has a spot reserved in fifth grade next year. If you have any questions about the packet or are maybe running just a little late with it, please call the front desk and let our wonderful receptionists know. If we don't hear from you, there is the possibility that your child's spot could be given to a student on our waiting list, but we would rather not do that! Personally, I have had a fantastic year teaching your students, and it would be great to see them come back for fifth.

This week, as you all know, is the week of AZ Merit testing for English and math. (Science testing will take place soon but not this week; date TBA). The schedule of tests is as follows: Writing test Monday morning; math test 1 Tuesday morning; reading test 1 after math test on Tuesday morning; math test 2 Thursday morning; reading test 2 after math test on Thursday morning.

The tests have a target time limit, but they are not timed. This means that if a child does not finish within the target time, they can take the time they need to finish in the fifth grade math lab before going back to class to start their next test. This will not affect their score.

Once a student starts a test, they must finish it. They do get a recess break and bathroom breaks, but other than that, they must finish their test in order to have a valid score. Please do not take your children out of school on these days. If you come looking for you child, we will, of course, get him or her for you, but taking him or her out of school will invalidate his or her test. This means your child will not have an AZ Merit score in that subject this year. Similarly, please do not allow your children to be absent on testing days unless there is a true emergency.

These days of tests are often intense for stu,dents, and so to reduce pressure we are having the science tests for fourth grades on a different week as I mentioned before. There will also be no homework assigned Monday through Thursday this week. Each day, after tests are complete, the students will resume their normal class schedule. However, there will be a heavy emphasis on science and history, to balance out the math and English testing.

In science this week we will continue our study of ecology. One of the main topics this week will be global climate change, as required for the state science exams. I understand this can be a sensitive topic for many reasons, so I wanted to explain a little bit about how we will be teaching it. We will go over the evidence that it exists, and then we will discuss theories on why it exists, including the theory held by some that this is part of a natural earth cycle, and, of course, the prevailing theory that it is caused by air pollution. We will discuss the need for caution regarding our use of fossil fuels and the potential for practical solutions. After we finish discussing climate change we will begin studying weathering and erosion. If you have any questions you can always contact me.

These are all the notes I have for you this week. As always, feel free to email me at rwycklendt@archwaytriviumeast.org with any questions.

Sincerely,

Miss Wycklendt

A Week Before Easter!

Dear Parents,

Welcome back from spring break!  In our first week back I would like to give a huge thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make our fieldtrip to the MIM a success! Thank you to the generous donors who made it possible for our students to experience the MIM for the price of bus fare! Thank to Mrs. Dixon and Mrs. Walters, our classroom parents who coordinated so many aspects of the field trip and worked so hard to communicate with all the parents! Thank you to Mr. Ohbayashi, who was responsible for coordinating much of the field trip on the school’s end.  Thank you to our parent chaperones, Mrs. Penn, Ms. Pacheco, Ms. Lipman, Mrs. Connery, Mrs. Copeland, and Mrs. Ball, who guided our students safely through bus rides, museum exhibits and lunch time! Thank  you to all of you parents who volunteered to be chaperones and were not selected in the lottery; it was encouraging to see so much support for our class! Thank you to all of the parents who joined us at the MIM and at the park; it was fun to have you!

Tuesday is our MOD Pizza fundraiser! If you purchase pizza from MOD and present the flyer sent in our school newsletter this week, a portion of your purchase will go to support our school. If you need a copy of the flyer, feel free to contact the school, and we will be happy to make sure you have one.

This week is, of course, the week before Easter. In preparation for Easter, our students have off all day on Friday. Other days will run on their normal schedule.

As you may be aware by now, our school will have state standardized tests in math and English next week. This week in math we will be learning and reviewing a few topics related to these tests. Topics will include a review of place value, a review of adding and subtracting mixed numbers, some work on patterns, and some simple geometry. In order to help the students get into the rhythm of standardized testing, homework this week will be in multiple choice format on topics related to the state test. Please be prepared to support your students in case they need a little extra help during these temporary changes.

As I have also previously mentioned, the fourth grade students have been and will continue to be reviewing for their standardized science exam. In Arizona, fourth grade students are required to take a standardized science exam. Students in other grades are not required to do so. Therefore, if you have students in more than one grade at Trivium East, only your fourth grade students will need to take a science exam. In order to reduce any sense of pressure the students may feel, the science exam will not take place next week with the math and English tests. It will take place in the fifth week of the quarter.

On a related note, the week of state tests is extremely important. Students are required to take the exams, and the school is not in full control of the exam dates. Therefore, we ask that you do not allow your students to have unexcused absences next week.. Absences due to illness, accidents, etc. are unfortunate and sometimes unavoidable, but please only allow absences that are truly necessary. Thank you.

Since we are in fourth quarter, students may now wear shorts with their uniforms. All other dress code standards remain in effect.

These are all the notes I have for you this week. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Miss Wycklendt

Field Trip Week!

Dear Parents,

Welcome to week 28, the final week of third quarter! This week we have our long-awaited trip the MIM on Tuesday. If you have not handed in a permission slip and $10 bus fee for your student, you have one last chance to do so tomorrow. Otherwise, you student will become an honorary third grader for the day!

A few students have asked me about the results of their recent math and science tests, and I have been happy to discuss the test with them. If parents would like to know the results of the tests, they can always contact me. In order to improve communication with parents regarding tests and help parents gain clarity about the tests, I did send one math test and one science test home this quarter. However, in order to meet administrative requirements, I need to keep some tests on file for students' records. From here on out, I will attempt to send approximately every other test home, starting with the first math and science tests in fourth quarter. When tests are taken on a Friday, as they usually are in my classes, you can expect to see them in the students' Friday folders on the following Friday. For tests that are not being sent home, please wait one week before inquiring about tests results, and I will be sure to have your students' tests graded and ready to discuss at that time.

In science class this week we will briefly cover some topics that may appear on the state test but are not ordinarily covered by our curriculum. These include natural disasters, erosion, and environmental concerns. In math we will continue to work with fractions, converting mixed fractions and improper fractions and finding equivalent fractions.

We also have our final meth test of the quarter this week. For those that are interested, here is the study guide:

1. Fractions are equal parts of a whole. The denominator of the fraction is the bottom number. It tells us how many parts make up one whole. The numerator is the top number. It tells us how many parts are being considered.

2. There are also two other main, important ways to think about fractions. One of them is as division. The numerator then becomes the dividend of the division problem and the denominator becomes the divisor. For example, 3/4 = 3÷4. 5÷7 = 5/7. 255/100 = 255 ÷ 100. 35/17 = 35÷17. Students should be able to change fractions to division problems and division problems to fractions.

3. The last main concept of fractions is typically unfamiliar to Americans. It is as follows: We can think of a fraction x/y as the amount each person gets if you divided x items among y people. (I would NOT expect students to understand the algebraic language, but it is  usually easier to generalize ideas for adults in algebraic language.) For example, if there are 4 pizzas and 7 people, divide each pizza into 7 slices and each person gets four slices, one from each pizza. Each of the 4 slices is 1/7 of a pizza, so each person gets 4/7. (It may help to write names of seven people, draw four circles, divide them into seven parts, and draw lines from each person's slices to their name to see that this actually works. It took me awhile to understand this concept when I was first introduced to it.) Similarly, 9/4 could mean 9 pizzas divided among 4 people. If you divide each pizza into 4ths and give each person one slice per pizza, each person gets 9/4. Students should be able to model this concept by drawing a number of shapes equal to the numerator, dividing those shapes into parts equal to the denominator, and shading one part from each.

4. Proper fractions are fractions where the numerator is less than the denominator. Improper fractions are fractions where the numerator is greater than or equal to the denominator. Because proper fractions have a numerator less than the denominator, they are always less than 1. (Take 7/8: if you have one pie divided into 8 slices and your family eats 7 slices, they have not yet eaten the whole pie.)   Improper fractions with numerators and denominators equal are equal to 1. (Take 8/8: if you divide a cake into 8 slices and eat all 8 slices, you've eaten the whole cake. Also, any number divided by itself equals 1.) Improper fractions with numerators greater than the denominators are greater than 1. (Take 9/8: if you have two cakes divided into 8 slices and you eat 8 slices of one cake and 1 slice of another cake, you've eaten one whole cake and an extra slice.)

5. Students should know and be able to give examples of proper fractions and of both kinds of improper fractions. They should be able to accurately compare fractions to 1 using <, >, and = signs.

6. When using the greater than/ less than sign the rule is that the larger end always goes toward the larger number. 56 < 57; 56 > 55. 3/4 < 1; 5/4 > 1.

7. Mixed numbers are numbers expressed with two parts, a whole part and a fractional part. 4 1/2 is a mixed number with a whole part of 4 and a fractional part of 1/2. The fractional part of a mixed number must always be a proper fraction. Students should be able to identify and give examples of mixed numbers and their whole and fractional parts.

8. We can convert improper fractions to whole numbers or mixed numbers by dividing. Improper fractions that divide evenly become whole numbers. 10/5 = 10÷5 = 2. Improper fractions that divide and have remainders become mixed numbers. The whole number answer to the division problem becomes the whole part of the mixed number, and we write the original denominator of the improper fractions as the denominator of the remainder, and this fraction becomes the fractional part of the mixed number. 13/5 = 13÷5 = 5 R3 = 5 3/5.

9. We can convert mixed numbers to improper fractions by multiplying the denominator of the fractional part by the whole part and adding the fractional part to the resulting fraction. 3 1/4  3x4 =12 12/4 +1/4 = 13/4, so 3 1/4 =  13/4. Intuitively, this should make sense. Division and multiplication are inverse operations; the one undoes the other. If we convert improper fractions to mixed numbers by dividing, it makes sense that we would convert mixed numbers back to improper fractions by multiplying. Also, think about it this way: if you have 3 1/4 pizzas and you divide the three whole pizzas into 4 parts each, 3 pizzas x 4 fourths per pizza = 12/4 of pizza  Now add the extra 1/4 from the fractional part of the mixed number 12/4 + 1/4 = 13/4.

10. Students should be able to convert improper fractions to mixed numbers and vice-versa.

These are all the notes I have for you this week! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please email me at rwycklendt@archwaytriviumeast.org.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Wycklendt